For over 15 years, GrUB has been engaging at-risk teens in Olympia, Washington in community and agriculture projects to provide alternative education, employment opportunties, and drop-out prevention. Between 2001 and 2009, only 41 percent of the students at GRuB were on track to graduate. Now, ninety one percent have graduated high school or earned their GED. GRuB facilitates meaningful projects for students, such as building gardens in low-income neighborhoods.
Feburary 26-28 GruB will offer the GruB institute, a three-day workshop in Olympia, Washington, that offers strategies for engaging students through land-based projects, and established program ideas. The workshop will share GRuB’s successful model through a manual describing GRuB’s Cultivating Youth Employment Program and the new GRuB School model.
Since starting their community project, GRuB has partnered with Olympia School District to create an education program that allows students to spend half of their day in classes and the other half at GRuB school. GRuB teaches students tangible life skills and develops leadership abilities while instilling a sense of community, purpose, and worth in their students. Their farm-based education has helped many of their students overcome poverty, hunger, and oppression.
The workshop will explore strategies for partnering with educational institutions and will help similar program benefit from GRuB’s model. The GRuB institute will center around sharing the ideas and specific programs that have infused their students’ lives with hope.
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